Introduction
During the preparation of the 4 Volumes of William Shakespeare's Sonnet Philosophy form 1995 to 2005, a considerable number of charts, diagrams, and other visual displays and aids to presentation for seminars etc, were produced. And, at the same time as the writing was progressing, changes were made to the workspace or study in keeping with its role as the foundation space for the Quaternary Institute. This material has continued to expand up into the 2020s
As the space is now covered with information, with the architecture of the room contributing to the effect, it seems a natural transition to evert the space so that the information becomes the instigational material for an architecture generated first and foremost from the ideas. Because the material is new to the world literature, the idea arises of displaying the material in a way that invokes the mythic dimension of its founding documents and artworks.
The buildings that immediately come to mind as exemplary display vehicles for a mythic level of ideas are the Egyptian temples that are so covered in hieroglyphs it could be imagined the buildings were constructed with the principal purpose of creating surfaces for the presentation of ideas. While other architectural periods have produced buildings covered in imagery such as the unique Moldavian churches and the Maori wharenui, few rival the Egyptian as bearers of extensive areas of literary information.
By utilizing the structural logic of Shakespeare's Sonnets, Duchamp's Large Glass, Wittgenstein's philosophy, and Darwin's biology as the generating principles for the organisation of the charts and diagrams and other material, there is within the display devices the potential to translate the material into an architectural expression. Because the material is information, the potential to convey it using the many forms of electronic media provides a starting point around which to conceive of architectural forms consistent with the structural logic of the philosophy.
While the concept of a quaternary architecture is only at a very rudimentary stage, the images below of a model constructed purely out of materials at hand give an impression of a large scale environmental layout with structures suggesting possible display opportunities for the various pieces of information. The scale is provided by the small figures dotted about the landscape. The large human shapes represent monumental sculptures of female figures.
The idea of Maquette offers a challenge to anyone interested in exploring an architecture using the latest electronic display devices to present a quaternary level of understanding. The model offers suggestions only for the multiplicity of opportunities for unique architectural forms.
The grouping of ideas in an intermedia environmental space, inspired by the rubric of Maquette, come together under the celebratory title Quaternary Commons. The Quaternary Commons both conceptualises the environmental deployment of electronic displays in the green of a traditional Commons and announces the availability of all the ideas and material in the Commons of the non-copyright constituency of freely accessible and dissemenated seminal ideas.
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